Dance

The EAI collection spans the mid-1960s to the present, and is recognized as one of the most comprehensive video art collections in the world. The works in the collection range from seminal videos by pioneering figures — such as Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, Martha Rosler and Joan Jonas — to new digital works by emerging artists, including Seth Price, Paper Rad, Cory Arcangel and Takeshi Murata.

We are one of the first contemporary performance organizations to begin filming works by top caliber artists with multiple high-definition cameras, collaboratively editing the films with the artists, and delivering feature-length performance films to audiences around the globe. Fans of contemporary performance have better access to artists they want to see regardless of where they live and their busy schedules.

A film adaptation of a modern dance work originally made for the stage, featuring the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. The film combines different shooting locations, black and white and color film and stereo sound to present the dance through the visual medium of film

Eight short films from Dance Camera West 2021: Sedimented Here (dir. by Rachel Barker); Traces - (dir. by Alex Murrull); 4 - (dir. by Mariana Palacios); Earth Odyssey: Asaf Avidan - (dir. by Adi Halfin); Beast - (dir. by Adi Halfin); Liminality - (dir. by Jennifer Petuch & Annali Rose); where the spiders live - (dir. by Holger Mohaupt); Escape - (dir. by Heidi Duckler)

Eight short films from Dance Camera West 2021: Dusk - (dir. by Henrique Pina); ID - (dir. by Cass Mortimer Eipper); Forest Floor - (dir. by Robbie Synge); Second Seed - (dir. by Baye & Asa); Lost Horse: Asaf Avidan - (dir. by Adi Halfin); The King - (dir. by Jonathan Redavid); Being - (dir. by Pablo Destito); The Circadian Cycle - (dir. by Garry Stewart)

One of a series of dance pieces created specially for television: a shoot-out at a petrol station. A dark and provocative film in which the performers enter the terrain of movie mythology, playing with the power and responsibility of violent movie roles. BLOODY MESS is an exploration of our complex relationship with screen violence; how it can bring catharsis, escapism and empowerment as well as its destructive and seductive glamour. BLOODY MESS uses extremes of gesture and movement to create an uneasy blurring of boundaries between fantasy and reality.

Two half-hour programs featuring Cunningham and his Company. A marriage of choreography and video techniques occurs in this two-part program on Merce Cunningham and his dance company. Cunningham makes use of multiple screen images. An "video event" the program is comprised of excerpts from: "Winterbranch", "Second Hand", "Sounddance", "TV Rerun", "Changing Steps", "Landrover", "Signals" as well rehearsal and class footage.

Reading the Body. Installation, duration: 5 minute loop.
A single screen / 2 channel installation that juxtaposes the poem Reading the Body, (by New Zealand Poet Laureate Jenny Bornholdt), and film (by Sue Healey). The installation offers a cinematic and spatial rendering of the poem, through choreographed movement and animation. Alma & Ena.
video, duration: 5 mins. Reading the Body. video, duration: 6.30 mins. A duet for dancer and animated anatomical imagery, based on a poem by Jenny Bornholdt.

The program includes: Yurodivy - directed by Ryan Renshaw. Based upon the legend of Sisyphus, Yurodivy explores contemporary humankind's relentless pursuit for wealth and happiness. (4 mins); Cuckoo Song - directed by James Copeman. A joyous, hypnotic dance experience that celebrates Mother Nature’s natural cycle. (13 mins); Our Planet Destiny - directed by Chen Li. The hope there will be less pollution, less destruction and less war. (10 mins); La Galerie - directed by Loup-William Théberge. An unforeseen connection between a woman and a painting triggers an unexpected journey. (12 mins); Suck it Up - directed by Baye & Asa. Confronts the violent fallout of male insecurity and entitlement. (12 mins); The Noise My Leaves Make - directed by Tia-Monique Uzor. A contemporary dance film that explores Black womanhood and the rural environment in England. (7 mins); What I Know So Far - directed by Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern. Movement, words, a soliloquy. (5 mins); At Lake - directed by Mistaya Hemingway. A revisioning of Maya Deren's iconic 1944 film, At Land. (13 mins); Parque - directed by Iván Asnicar, Ailén Cafiso. Two bodies dance looking for the exit. (7 mins); Sheila - directed by Gabri Christa. A dancer blows out a candle and finds herself in a magical world of memory, dance and presence. Featuring Sheila Rohan, one of the founding members of Dance Theater of Harlem. (8 mins)

Dance for Camera presents six films that are among the most outstanding examples of a new film genre that merges dance and film. Selected from festivals in Europe and North America, and winners of over 17 international awards, these films present an array of humor, drama, beauty and rhythm not usually seen on film or stage made by young emerging artists from around the world.

This anthology of performances includes: A Dancer Drops Out Of The Sky (The Physical TV Company) What I Did On My Nervous Breakdown (The Physical TV Company) Deep (Milla Moilanen/KROMA) Scale (Milla Moilanen/KROMA) Beach Dreams (Liz Milwe) Only You (Liz Milwe) The Wedding (Liz Milwe)

From a Butoh-inspired portrait of a demented aristocrat (The Duchess), to a sensual bedroom metamorphosis (Horses Never Lie) to an intimate moment interrupted by a burst water pipe (Burst), this latest collection of award-winning dance films from around the world will "bewitch, bedazzle and bewilder!" (Deirdre Towers, Dance on Camera Festival Director).

A series of 12 short dance films made for television. Includes pieces by Jacob Barley, Frank McConnell, Belinda Neave, Laurie Booth, Gary Lambert, Jonathan Lunn, Nick Burge, Aletta Collins, Carolyna Choa, Kim Brandstrup, Paul Clayden, and Nahid Siddiqui.

This episode of The Spirit of Dance is about the Dance on Camera Film Festival.

A suite of dances made for television from award-winning director Douglas Rosenberg, this project is based on the work of renowned choreographers Sean Curran, Li Chiao-Ping, and Amy Sue Rosen: "Real Boy" (Sean Curran) "Hope" (Amy Sue Rosen/Derek Bernstein) "Odyssey" (Li Chiao-Ping) "Residues" (Li Chiao-Ping)

Three different tales about the facets composing human soul at the presence of a powerful feeling such as love. Through dance, bodies give life to a bouquet of emotions, that otherwise would remain unexpressed. In "Exodus," two women and a man are committed in a dance of love and death. In "When the End of Winter is Almost Spring," a father, his new wife and his son compete with hostility, seduction and jealousy. And finally, in "I Want to Remember," a man remembers with tenderness and regret his past spent with his young lover

Painter and teacher, sculptor of monumental kinetic forms, Doris Chase is best known as a pioneer in the field of Dance for the Camera. Beginning in the 1970s, she produced more than fifty videos now regarded as key works in the history of video art. This collection features her most important works.

A compilation of video art produced by award-winning videographer Douglas Rosenberg. Collection includes: Parentheses (1984) Strike Zone (1986) Tempters Challenge (1986) La Mecanique (1987) Aria (1998)

Strange Fish As in all DV8's work, the performers in Strange Fish take astounding and humbling physical risks, and are audacious in fashioning metaphors of extreme emotion. The work concerns the nature of our quest for someone to love and something, or someone, to believe in. The tyranny of couples and groups, the pain of not belonging and the terror of being alone are all laid bare in a series of powerful images which are both pitiless and profoundly compassionate. Strange Fish is harrowing and frightening, but also contains some acutely funny moments. Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men explores the grisley world of the notorious serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Founded upon the conviction that societal homophobia is bound to result in tragic consequences, it gets to grips with the disturbing forces that drove Nilson to kill for company. In the anguished twilight between the meatmarket of gay clubland and broken-hearted bedsitterland, the fine line between sex and death is all but erased. Harrowing, and bleak, the fierce physical action that has become DV8's trademark is nevertheless shaped into a forceful plea for humanity in a dehumanising world. Enter Achilles A funny, cruel exploration of the male psyche, Enter Achilles is set in a typical British pub, a shabby, nicotine-stained boozer. Pop songs tumble out of the jukebox, there is football on the TV, and the eight men lark around, pint glasses in hand. But their blokish fun is balanced on a knife-edge of tension, for beneath the mateyness lurks a disturbing undercurrent of paranoia and insecurity, where weakness is brutally exploited and violence covers up vulnerability.

Lyrical and spellbinding, EMBRACING EARTH shows dancers, under the artistic direction of acclaimed choreographer Anna Halprin (winner of American Dance Festival's 1997 Lifetime Achievement Award), moving with the shapes, rhythms and textures of nature. Intimate and meditative imagery transports the viewer to a place where self and environment merge, to a point of understanding that the forces of nature move within us, not just outside of us. EMBRACING EARTH is a meditation on nature, and an evocative tool for inspiring dancers and all artists to explore the depth and source of their own creativity.

Five site-specific dance films shot on location in rural Wisconsin. Each vignette is created in and of the landscape and local architecture and speaks to metaphors of the senses, relationships, and the changing of the seasons. Emmy nominated director Douglas Rosenberg and Gemini nominated director Allen Kaeja collaborate with Li Chiao-Ping and Karen Kaeja as well as guest artists from Kaeja d'Dance and others including Heidi Latsky, David Dorfman, Lisa Race and performers and musicians from the United States and Canada. This suite of films is among the first High-Definition dance films shot in North America and was funded in part by BravoFACT! And Wisconsin Public Television.

Established in 1991 and founded by artistic directors Allen and Karen Kaeja, Kaeja d'Dance is recognized for creating an eclectic array of vividly original dance performances that simmer with athletic intensity and theatrical imagery. ... This volume features: Old Country (2003), adapted from Allen Kaeja's successful stage presentation, explores the dynamics of a community confronted with the imminent brutality of war -- Zummel (1999), choreographed by Allen Kaeja, is based upon the first day of families being uprooted from their homes during WWII -- Departure (2003) is the story of the inter-relationship of a couple struggling to come to terms with their imminent separation because of impending war -- Resistance (2001) explores the power of the human spirit against the oppression of the Holocaust.

This is a compilation of some of Maya Deren's most important films: The Very Eye of Night (1955), Ritual In Transfigured Time (1946), Meditation On Violence (1948), Study For Choreography And Camera (1945). These films address dance as "...the stylization of movement which confers ritual dimension upon functional motion..." She has been described as an inheritor of the surrealists, however, Maya Deren was one of the earliest pioneers in the adaptation of dance for the camera. As a woman working in the 1940's and early 50's, her work anticipated many of the obstacles and biases of subsequent feminist discourse. Her work has long been the focus of film scholars, but neglected by those in the world of Dance/Film and Video. Maya Deren's work with Anthony Tudor and Talley Beatty among others represent seminal explorations of the possibilities of dance and the camera.

The Niche series is devoted to the choreographed body and its intricate occupation of space. Fantasies on habit, habitat and habitation, this work has traversed film, video, live performance, gallery installation and international collaboration.

José Montalvo and Dominique Hervieu, choreographers, offer an extravagant version, between opera and musical, of one of the greatest myths, combining dance, song, text and image. In this story with many faces, scores by Monteverdi, Gluck & Philip Glass combine while the hero turns into a one-legged hip-hop dancer or an acrobat on stilts. The myth of Orpheus thus revisited allows us to think of love, seduction, and power, with moments of grace, humor and fear

Based in Sydney, Australia, Karen Pearlman and Richard James Allen have been making dance films since 1985. They formed The Physical TV Company in 1997. This collection features three of their over 20 works for the camera: Rubberman Accepts The Nobel Prize (2001). A superhero who speaks only the language of dance makes an outrageous, graceful, and rambunctious physical acceptance speech. No Surrender (2002). A young Indigenous woman is invaded, terrorized, and physically attacked by an unseen intruder wielding a camera. Down Time Jaz (2003). A physical-digital dance about a family using real bodies and digital media to choreograph the impossible.

Mirrorland (2010). Draws on investigations into how we experience landscape, in this instance one that is English and agricultural. Bodmin Whale (2009). Sets out to describe the essence of an improvisation as perceived through the lens of the camera. Watergate Bay (2007). Draws on the improvisations of eight dancers responding to the coastal landscape of North Cornwall, UK. The material captured on camera was then re-choreographed through the editing process.

Ms. Clarke's dance films, though rarely seen, are seminal in the history of dance for the camera. This film features: Dance in the Sun (1953) with Daniel Nagrin, In Paris Parks (1954),Bullfight (1955), Moment in Love (1956) with Anna Sokolow, and A Visual Diary (1980) with Blondell Cummings.

Featuring behind-the-scenes, rehearsals and personal stories of the artists we often only see on stage. Learn how dances are made from the people who make them. As Covid shutdowns forced dancers to take time away from performances, they used the time and space to create introspective films about their art to continue speaking to their audiences.

International Shorts Programs features short experimental dance films from Canada, U.S., Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Iran, Netherlands, Singapore, United Kingdom. Includes: On Mending, Dir. Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern, Emilie Louise Leriche, Italy,14:55; In Plain Sight, Dir. Tanin Torabi, Iran,10:30; Evidence of it All, Dir. Drew Jacoby, USA, 9:12; Amarinthe(馬不停蹄), Dir. Chen Jiexiao, Singapore, 15:06; Ephemera, Dir. Viliam Dočolomanský, Jiří Matoušek, Czechoslovakia,19:59; desasosiego, Dir. Aina Lanas, Spain, 6:25; Elsewhere, Dir. Madison Olandt, Mike Tyus, USA, 17:00; Child of the Screen, Dir. Nathan Hirschaut, USA, 5;20; Buoyancy, Dir. Jessica Liu, Germany, 10:30; Edge of Mercy, Dir. Robbie Shaw, Jennifer Rose, USA, 6:56; Black.Eco, Dir. Shauna Davis, United States, 12:00; Still Life - 'Interitus' / 'Tabeo' / 'Vanitas', Dir. Ryan Renshaw, Australia, 14:57; Ostra, Dir. Austen Browne, United States. 7:35

The film is a recreation for the camera of the work by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, the Flemish choreographer of Moroccan descent, and Les Ballets C. de la B. The film is set in a magnificent Moroccan palm grove. A woman is at the centre of gravity, at its epicentre. The film's heroine - pursued by an invisible presence - meets a prince. The prince falls madly in love with her, but she leaves him for another. Soon however, her past catches up with her. The inspiration for Tempus Fugit lies without a doubt in the popular cinema of India with its great melodramas that blend dance, song, music and enchantment. Their complexity stems often - just as in Tempus Fugit - from the confrontation between tradition and modernity

Elegantly engaging, Of Time and the Spirit is a poignant meditation on the diverse and often magical world of a dancer reflecting upon her life in time and place. Mesmerizing and delicately nuanced, the dance of memory seems to grow as if through a chamabered nautilus opening to the world.

An exploration by one of America's most eminent choreographer/dancers, Twyla Tharp, of the relationship between the complex technology of television and the realm of dance. By utilizing the almost infinite creative genius and vitality of the dancer's art and the possibilities presented by television's highly sophisticated science, Twyla Tharp has produced a fusion of the two-a creation which is both television and dance carried to the highest degree. The freedom allowed by video techniques and the creatively provided by Twyla Tharp's choreography complement one another perfectly, and make possible an exciting and innovative dance/video work

Venous Flow weaves first person narrative with contemporary dance to tell the story of a community of dancers and artists and their resolution to overcome personal trauma. "Grace" is a large group piece performed by Li Chiao-Ping Dance and a community of elders shot on a frozen lake in winter, revealing the stark beauty of winter as well as the warmth of community.

The Mourning Kiss (Screened at the 1990 International Grand Prix Video Danse, Paris, France) "...a modified tango for two is arrested in time, accentuating physical gestures and their emotive possibilities. The use of an ever-wandering slow-motion technique suspends the desiring note of Susana Tambutti's choreography." Steve Seid, Pacific Film Archive. "The images are cold, sharp, and clear." Jack Anderson, New York Times. Commissioned by The American Dance Festival. Yellow River (Hwang Ho) Screened at the 1992 Dance Screen, Frankfurt, Germany, the piece combines movement, gesture, text, and landscape imagery to tell a woman's story of growing up Chinese in America. Choreographer Li Chiao-Ping recounts the stories, superstitions, and fables told to her as a child by her mother. "From the first delicate shots of rice falling, the piece engaged me." Julia Reichart, juror, Charlotte Film and Video Festival.

Six choreographers, six directors and eighteen dancers gathered together in Sydney to participate in the 1st National Dance Video Course. Under the direction of BBC Director of Dance, Bob Lockyer, the two week workshop aimed to encourage the exploration of choreography specifically for the camera. This program presents some of the dance experiments that came out of this event.

Created by award-winning choreographer and dance film maker Sue Healey, with music by New Zealand jazz legend Mike Nock, Virtuosi is a feature length documentary about the drive to be an artist and the special nature of virtuosity in dance. Through exhilarating dance and stories from the heart, Virtuosi reveals intimate and astounding portraits of eight New Zealand dance artists. Destined for greatness, these artists all left their homeland in their youth, to pursue careers around the world. They have each achieved remarkable things and through this film audiences have the rare chance to reflect on their careers. Virtuosi dances ideas across many cities and cultures - New York, Berlin, London, Brussels and Australia - revealing fascinating dance lineages and connections back to New Zealand. Winner Outstanding Achievement in Dance on Film, Australian Dance Awards 2013
Silver for Cinematography (Judd Overton) 2013 ACS Awards Australia for Documentaries, Cinema & TV

Dance Camera West received a NEA grant to mentor BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) artists. The participants were shortlisted from the three LA based dance festivals with the potential for a strong cinematic impact on the choreography by partnering them with experienced, skilled dance filmmakers as mentors. DCW is a producer on the project, and left all artistic decisions up to the teams. The 2022 selected artists are Letxia Cordova, Marquisa Gardner, Irishia Hubbard, Alyssa Junious, Austyn Rich, RouRou Ye. The Mentors are Cara Hagan, Robin Gee, Roma Flowers, Yolanda Guadarrama.

The symbolic travel of a child passing into adulthood, told through dance, in a balance of imagination and dream. The film is concerned with the loss of the childhood, the coming of age and the entrance in the adult world. A child faces this passage through two characters who symbolically represent the world of children as an uncontaminated world that is destined to end.

From The International Journal of Screendance, vol7, 2016

Physical book in UCI Libraries

Physical book in UCI Libraries

Physical book in UCI Libraries

Special issue dedicated to screendance

First scholarly journal dedicated to the field of screendance. Freely available online.

Physical book in UCI Libraries

eBook in UCI collection

Physical book in UCI Libraries

eBook in UCI collection

eBook in UCI collection

Physical book in UCI Libraries

Special issue of The International Journal of Screendance (vol.4, 2014)